Two and a Half Men (and a Baby)
by foojules
Summary: Revolution Sybil Style Now! AU (set in the 1990s). Weeks after the birth of Tom and Sybil's daughter, Sybil's sisters take her out for a much-needed ladies' night while a somewhat incapacitated Tom gets help with the baby from his brothers-in-law.
1. Chapter 1

_AN: So here we are. After all the drama these two have been through in this AU, they've finally reached domestic bliss (well, their kind of domestic bliss). Hope you enjoy this little peek into their future. It's not too crack-y, but as you'll see, it is a bit of a comedy of errors. Rather than having one monstrous chapter I've divided it into several shorter ones, but they should be posted pretty quickly. And for people who like the playlists, there will be one!_

_In case you're wondering: yes, I came up with the title first and basically built the premise around it. For those who may not know, _Two and A Half Men_ is a kind of terrible American sitcom (it had Charlie Sheen as its main talent for a while) and _Three Men and a Baby _is a kind of terrible—but also awesome—'80s movie._

* * *

February 1999

"I'm not sure this is such a good idea."

Two steps from the door, Edith sags. "Sybil. You were fine with this two weeks ago. You were fine with it last week. You—"

"But Tom's arm wasn't broken last week," Sybil interrupts, fiddling with the strap on her handbag. "And Siobhan's been awfully fussy the past few days. It could be colic, and I'd hate to—"

"We've got it under control, love," Tom says from under the baby, who's asleep on his chest. "Have a good time." He raises his good hand to shoo the women out.

"I don't know." Sybil wavers, leaning towards her husband and daughter as though there's an invisible thread connecting her to the rocking chair.

"It's not as if Tom's all on his own," Matthew points out, lifting his eyes from Siobhan's sleeping face for the first time since he sat down. "He's got me and Anthony here to help him."

Sybil smiles. "I know what you're trying to do, and it's lovely of you." Her gaze shifts from Matthew to Anthony. "Only I don't think you realize just what you're in for. Have either of you even taken care of a baby before?"

"My sister has three boys," Anthony says.

Sybil is not convinced. "I'm not sure that's quite the same thing."

"Sybil, darling." Mary takes her sister's elbow firmly; her tone is kind, but it's plain that she will stand for no shilly-shallying. "I realize it's the first time you've left Siobhan, and I mean what I'm about to say in the nicest way possible, but I _will _get you out of this flat tonight if I have to knock you on the head and carry you over my shoulder."

Sybil presses her lips together and sighs, defeated. "Fine. I suppose you're right."

"Of course I'm right," Mary replies, her raised eyebrow saying _Aren't I always? _

Sybil crosses the room to brush her fingertips once more over the baby's fragile head, lightly covered in dark-brown fuzz, and to press a kiss to Tom's cheek. He turns his head to give her another light one on the lips. "Thanks for doing this, darling," she whispers.

"Don't mention it. You can use a night out."

"I'll have to return the favor sometime." Her eyes flick down at his injured right arm. "When you're better, that is."

"Oh, I dunno, the cast might be good for a free drink or two," Tom replies, and they both laugh. Siobhan's small face puckers at the disturbance and he winces and goes still until she settles again. "Better go while the going's good," he tells Sybil under his breath.

She turns back just before stepping over the threshold. "I've left three bottles in the fridge. Top shelf. There's more milk in the freezer if you need it."

Tom smiles indulgently. "You mean, where it's been since you put it in there the other day?"

"And don't forget to burp her after a feed, or she'll—"

"Love, I didn't get brain damage when I fell off my bicycle. I remember how to feed a baby." An edge creeps into his voice, but he banishes it with his next words. "Don't worry about a thing. We'll be fine."

"I hope she'll take a bottle," Sybil mutters as her sisters usher her into the hall.

Tom relaxes visibly as soon as the door closes behind them. "God, I thought they weren't going to be able to get her to go."

Matthew nods. "It was touch and go there for a minute."

"Edith and Mary handled that quite well, I thought," Anthony says, and twitches aside the curtain to peer down at the pavement. "They've gone," he reports after a couple of minutes.

Siobhan begins whimpering and for a moment it looks like Tom will have to figure out a way to get up and walk with her, but in the end he's able to calm her with a bit of shushing and back-rubbing. He settles back again, trying to find somewhere comfortable to rest the plaster cast; it makes his arm unwieldy, cartoonishly oversized. It bumps against the wooden arm of the chair and he grimaces. "Could someone go into the kitchen and get me the pill bottle that's on the worktop? And a glass of water, please."

"You haven't taken the painkillers for your arm?" Matthew looks properly horrified.

"Not since this morning. I was afraid Sybil wouldn't go out if I seemed fogged up, but I think I'm about ready to start crying myself."

"Good God," Anthony murmurs, heading into the kitchen. They hear cabinets opening and closing as he searches for a glass.

Tom flexes his shoulder and winces. "Fuc... I mean, bloody hel... I mean..." He blows an irritated breath through his nostrils. "_Aitken_," he snaps. The disgraced MP's name has been in the news lately with his guilty plea, and it's the first thing that comes to mind in lieu of a more satisfying expletive.

Matthew breaks into loud laughter, making the baby flinch in her sleep. He snaps his mouth shut with a chastened look. "So you're really not swearing anymore?"

"I figure I'll have trained myself out of it by the time she's old enough to know what's going on." Tom shakes his head with a sheepish grin. "I don't know why I bother, though, with Sybil around." He nods down at his daughter. "This one'll end up teaching all the other kids in crèche how to say _fuck_ this and _cocksucker _that no matter what _I_ do."

Anthony has returned with the magic pills just in time to hear Tom's last words. "Sybil? Really? But she seems so nice..."

"She is," says Matthew, who has seen his sister-in-law in many more unguarded moments than Anthony has. "Only she sometimes likes to express herself in a rather colorful way."

"She's got a mouth on her like a sailor. Can't seem to break her of it." Tom shakes his head again, trying to suppress the smile tugging at his mouth.

Anthony's brow furrows a bit. "How very surprising."

- to be continued -


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: Thanks so much for the reviews, follows and favorites, and hello to the Edith/Anthony and Mary/Matthew fans who are reading! A word of warning: Edith can be a bit waspish in this incarnation, but it's a defense mechanism to some extent. And Mary is, of course, Mary._

* * *

They've only just been seated at Christopher's and haven't even ordered drinks before Mary asks Sybil when she plans to go back to work.

Edith answers before Sybil can. "Good God, Mary, is work all you ever think about? Her baby's not even two months old."

From across the table Mary shoots Edith a withering glare before turning her attention back to her little sister. "I just don't want you to fall behind," she says. "You hear about it all the time. Women take off six months for maternity leave and the next thing you know they've been housewives for five years and their husbands have left them flat to run off with the secretary."

"Tom doesn't have a secretary," Sybil says easily. Her eyes flit upward to the elaborate gilt crown molding; this was Mary's choice of restaurant, and it shows.

"Even so. Just in the last year my firm's lost three of its best. After all the time we've spent getting them up to speed." Mary rolls her eyes like it's a personal affront.

Sybil gives Mary a rather severe look. "But you do still hire women, I hope."

"Of course we do." This earns a mollified nod from Sybil, but she frowns again when Mary goes on. "Though it's worth my life trying to convince the other partners to give them a chance, when they just keep leaving. It seems a waste for them to invest all that time and effort in becoming solicitors and then chuck it away for a life where the most intellectual stimulation they get is figuring out whether the baby's crying because it's hungry or it's got a full nappy."

"Maybe the job's the problem, not them," Sybil says. "I shouldn't wonder it gets to be too much, having a child at home and still being expected to put in ridiculous hours. My work's a bit different."

Mary raises an eyebrow. "So they'd be fine with you coming back part time, would they?" She knows very well that as a staff nurse at Mile End Hospital, Sybil's worked her share of eighty-hour weeks.

Sybil shrugs and runs her fingers along the linen-covered edge of the table. "I could always get a job in private practice."

As ever, Edith is the one to make the awkward remark. "But I thought you wanted to help the less fortunate."

"Some might say people who are ill _are _less fortunate," snaps Sybil, but the arrival of their server, swathed in a spotless ankle-length apron and radiating supercilious courtesy, prevents her continuing. "Vodka tonic, please," she says when prompted for her drink order. "Make it a double."

-ooo-

Back at the flat, things are going just swimmingly until Siobhan wakes up hungry.

Tom attempts to talk Matthew through the process of heating up her bottle without himself having to get up, but this only frustrates them both, especially as Tom is having to raise his voice over the baby's increasingly strident wails. Siobhan is beyond frustration. The dummy her father offers is summarily rejected to skitter underneath the coffee table and she squeezes her eyes shut, toothless mouth gaping open, wee pink fists squirming free of the blanket and shaking like those of the world's smallest pugilist.

Finally Tom sighs, settles her into the crook of his left arm, and attempts to rise from his seat. He makes it halfway up before he loses his balance; his clumsy arm waves in the air and he falls back on his arse on the chair. Siobhan howls even louder at the addition of insult to injury.

"I could take her if you like." Anthony approaches, extending his hands.

"Could you?" Tom pulls the baby back at the last second, thinking of the look on Sybil's face should he have to explain to her that their daughter was dropped on her head because of his poor planning. "Careful, now."

Anthony nods with the diffidence of a man who knows he's out of his depth. Little by little Tom shifts the baby into his arms, saying, "There now, support her head... whoops, don't let her roll away, she's kicking like a little footballer..."

Anthony sits on the sofa and Tom stands, his head already feeling muzzy. The pills are doing their work: the pain in his arm hasn't gone, but it's no longer demanding as much of his attention. He wonders if he should've taken one instead of two. He ambles into the kitchen, where Matthew has just shaken a couple of drops from the bottle's nipple onto the back of his wrist. "Other side," he tells him.

"Sorry?"

"You test it on the inner part of the wrist. Gives you a better sense of the temperature."

Matthew turns his hand over and repeats the process. "How hot is this supposed to be?"

Tom chuckles. "Ideally? Body temperature." Matthew gives him a quizzical look. "She won't take a bottle if Sybil's anywhere near her. Straight from the tap, that's how she likes it."

Matthew half-smiles sympathetically. "That sounds rather hard on Sybil."

"Why do you think I've shoved her out the door tonight?" Tom nods his head towards the drops on Matthew's wrist. "It shouldn't burn you, but it shouldn't feel chilled either." He smiles. "You know, most blokes would be a little more squeamish about having breast milk on them." Matthew blanches and Tom's conscience pricks him a little, but he can hardly ever resist taking the piss out of his brother-in-law when the opportunity presents itself. He makes amends by saying, "You're quite the natural. Keep going like this and I might let you change her nappy."

Matthew gestures at Tom's cast. "I'll probably have to do it regardless. Me or Anthony."

"Shit, you're right." He hadn't even thought of that. "I wonder if he's ever changed one before?" The mental image of Sir Anthony Strallan, distinguished knight of the realm, up to his elbows in it makes Tom chuckle again; the chuckle turns into the giggles, and before he knows it Matthew's looking at him rather strangely.

"Painkillers working, eh?" Matthew observes with a raised eyebrow.

Tom clamps his mouth shut over the last of his giggles, though he can't stop his lips twitching. "Feck."

"You'd better go and sit down," Matthew says, handing him the bottle.

In the living room Siobhan is still crying, though in a hopeless, monotonous way that makes Tom's heart contract. Not wanting to delay any longer, he offers the bottle to Anthony. "Could you, er..."

Anthony's holding the baby as though he's afraid she'll explode if he makes any sudden movements, but he nods gamely. He only fumbles a bit as he maneuvers the nipple to Siobhan's lips; she rolls her tongue over the tip, her brow furrowing suspiciously.

Tom has collapsed next to them on the sofa. "Go on, my love," he croons, leaning over. "'S lovely milk. Drink it up now, sweetheart." Out of the corner of his eye he sees the side of Anthony's mouth quirk up and resists the urge to tell him that there's a reason people talk to babies this way. He doesn't need to assert his manhood: he's quite bloody secure in it, thank you very much, posset stains down his shoulder or no.

Matthew reenters the room carrying two pints of beer, the head on them still settling. "Hope you don't mind us having one," he says to Tom, setting a glass on the coffee table in front of Anthony and taking the other with him to the chair.

"That's what they're there for."

Matthew sips at his beer, watching Anthony try to get Siobhan to take the bottle. He gets increasingly fidgety as she twists her head from side to side, fussing, and finally he pops to his feet to hover over them. "Here, Anthony, you can't force the thing. She's not a keyhole."

Anthony looks up at him mildly. "I'm open to any suggestions you might have."

"Let me take her." Matthew sets his glass on the table and has plucked the baby from Anthony's arms before he or Tom have a chance to say anything. "She just needs a bit of calming. Have you ever tried to eat when you're upset?"

"S'port her head," Tom instructs. He feels as though he should be taking a more active role in all this, but doesn't quite have it in him to get up. Anthony sits looking bemused, switching the bottle from hand to hand, while Matthew saunters over to the window with Siobhan. He burbles some high-pitched nonsense and joggles her from side to side and it actually seems to be working: soon she's not really crying anymore, just letting out a bleat every few seconds.

Matthew glides back over to the rocking chair, continuing his hypnotic back-and-forth motion. "All right, give it to me." He extricates a hand from under the baby and holds it out for the bottle.

No one breathes until the nipple is securely lodged in Siobhan's mouth. Without her cries the room seems as tranquil now as it did chaotic a few minutes ago. Tom lets out a sigh, just now realizing how tense he'd been. "That was a pretty trick. What are you, the baby whisperer?"

"It was nothing." Matthew's shoulders give a careless twitch, but a proud smile tugs the corners of his mouth. "Just a bit of rocking."

"Yeah, well, if I'd tried that she'd still be yelling for the grub," Tom mutters with a smile. Matthew's tipping the bottle upward, dumping it down Siobhan's throat really: Sybil would make disapproving noises, but Tom just stretches his arm across the gap between sofa and chair to brush the back of his first finger over the baby's velvety cheek.

"Lovely little girl," Anthony says. He refrains from adding _When she's not screaming._

"She's a good little eater." Tom studies her, watching her puckered forehead smooth out. Six weeks in, he's just started to grow accustomed to the idea that he and Sybil have made this little person together, that she's part of him. Part of them both, and yet her own separate self: one day she'll go off and have adventures and make mistakes without any say-so from her parents. No doubt she'll break her da's heart a few times.

He's getting maudlin; it must be the drugs. He leans back and tilts his head against the back of the sofa, closing his eyes. Images start to form on the backs of his eyelids and his body feels like it's drifting, a sensation that's vaguely familiar from his few recreational opiate experiences.

Someone's calling him back. It's Matthew. "Tom? Don't go away on us, now."

He sits up, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I _really _should've only taken one of those pills." He glances at the baby, quiet on Matthew's lap, still drinking. The bottle's nearly gone already.

"How's your arm?" Anthony asks.

"Perfect." It still aches, but only a little and Tom decides that it's not important. There is something else he feels he should be remembering, though… _Ah, right_. "Are you hungry? There's leftover takeaway in the refrigerator. Or we could order a pizza." He himself does not feel much like eating, but that's no reason to be a crap host.

"I am a bit peckish, now you mention it," Matthew says. Siobhan starts sucking air from the bottle and he pulls it away. Her forehead wrinkles as though she's considering lodging a protest, but then she just blinks and smacks her lips. "How long have those leftovers been in there?"

Coming from Matthew, the question doesn't smack of judgment the way it might from Mary. Tom smiles. "Too long, probably. Anthony, will you reach me the phone?" Anthony hands him the cordless and he punches in Red Planet's number from memory. They order from there at least once a week: life is hectic and learning to cook a decent meal has never been high on either Tom or Sybil's list of priorities. He's pretty sure Sybil uses the oven to store her less frequently worn shoes. He has a sneaking suspicion that this sort of lifestyle is frowned upon now that they're parents and meant to be setting a wholesome example; but from what he's seen of other people's children, most live on cheese sandwiches anyway.

It turns out that Anthony and Matthew are polar opposites in their pizza topping preferences. Anthony wants fresh basil and tomato and Matthew asks for pepperoni, sausage, bacon, and extra cheese. "Does Mary do the meat overload as well?" Tom asks when he rings off.

Matthew laughs. He's dandling Siobhan on his knee, one hand cradling the base of her skull while the other encircles her shoulder. "Mary's a vegetarian. You didn't know?" He jumps a little when Siobhan lets out a resonant belch.

"Ah, good. I was just about to tell you to do that." Tom smiles. "No, I didn't know. If I'm honest, I've always thought of Mary as a confirmed carnivore." _She does seem like the type who likes a bit of blood._

Matthew raises an eyebrow, and Tom gets the sense that this isn't the first—or the tenth—allusion he's heard to his wife's ruthlessness. "She gave it up years ago, before we were married. The cookery's actually not bad, though. It's amazing what you can do with tofu and tempeh, though I do like to indulge in the real stuff when I can." He widens his eyes at Siobhan, who's wriggling and grunting and looking for all the world like Sybil in one of her single-minded moods. "What's she doing?"

This is a new one on Tom; usually Siobhan has a kip after Sybil nurses her in the evening. "Dunno. Maybe she wants down." The baby is looking rather intently at the rug. "Try putting her on her stomach." He remembers that being one of the many suggestions made by the health visitor—something about developing neck and shoulder muscles.

"On the floor?"

"No, on top of the bookcase. Of course, on the floor. A bit of dirt's not going to hurt her." Tom does a quick scan for things she could put in her mouth, just in case. There's nothing more dangerous than a few dust bunnies: he and Sybil are almost as rubbish at cleaning as they are at cooking, but they manage to keep things just this side of squalid.

Matthew makes a face, but arranges the baby face-down on the floor without comment. Her head bobbles—she's getting better at holding it up, but she can't for very long—and her cheek plops onto the carpet. She waves her arms and legs, whimpering in frustration until Matthew sits down on the floor where she can see him. "This is her playtime, is it?"

Tom waves toward the toy basket. "Give her something to look at."

Anthony gets into the act, bringing over a small stuffed elephant with a string which, when pulled, produces canned, maniacal childish laughter. Siobhan's head comes up and she goes still, her wide blue eyes riveted on the toy. When the sound stops she resumes wiggling, letting out excited little snorts until Anthony pulls the string again. He's utterly tickled. "She loves it!"

When supper arrives, Siobhan's still entertained—now gumming a rubber giraffe her maternal grandmother brought from France—and the three of them are still fascinated. Matthew moves toward the door, his eyes still riveted on the baby. "Tom, old chap, I'll bet you never thought this is how you'd be spending your Saturday nights a few years back."

"Never. Though I will say I'll take this over cheap lager and shite—I mean, crap bands any day—hey! What are you doing?" Tom's just now caught on, working his wallet free of his back pocket and shaking it at Matthew. "You're not paying."

But Matthew's already opened the door and most certainly is paying. It's become a bit of a game between the two of them, seeing who can be first to grab the bill; last time Matthew and Mary were in town there was practically a wrestling match at the restaurant. Tom gives him a black look when he comes back carrying the pizza boxes, but concedes defeat gracefully. He's in no shape for a grapple.

Anthony and Matthew find plates and tuck in, and even Tom has a slice of each pizza. From the swing, Siobhan watches them eat with the fascination of an anthropologist doing field research. "Looks as though she'd like some," Anthony comments with a laugh.

"Sorry, love, you'll have to make do with whatever your mum's had for dinner," Tom says. Or maybe not, as Sybil will likely need a few drinks if she's to run interference between her sisters.

He can't say he envies her.


	3. Chapter 3

Mary wants to take a taxi to the theatre but Sybil is in the mood for a walk. "This is _my _night out," she teases. "Shouldn't I get to do what I want? It's not that far." And so they stride along the pavement, three abreast in the crisp winter air.

As they walk Edith chatters about the play for which she's secured them tickets, a rather avant-garde sounding production put on by one of the Fringe theatres. "It's a little more out there than what Anthony and I usually go to see, but I think you'll enjoy it, Sybil."

"I know how you love all of that weird stuff," says Mary, whose tastes run more to _Coronation Street _than _Twin Peaks_.

"I don't love weird stuff." Sybil reconsiders. "All right, well, maybe I do."

"I think it's good to get out of your comfort zone once in a while," Edith says.

"I am terribly provincial," Mary admits, her tone breezy. "But then, we've got no culture to speak of in Manchester, only smokestacks and chip shops." She leans to look around Sybil at her middle sister and cast her inevitable barb. "What's your excuse?"

That puts Edith into a mini-snit and they walk in silence for a few minutes, until Sybil thinks of something to break the ice. "When's your next book coming out, Edith?"

Edith brightens. "Early next month. Apparently the pre-orders are rolling in at a nice clip." She writes romance novels. Lavinia Swire—her pen name—is one of England's more successful authors in the genre.

"And what's it called?"

"_A_ _Love for the Ages_. I went out on a bit of a limb for this one." She becomes more animated, grinning and gesturing with her gloved hands. "It was really rather difficult to write, what with the time travel angle, but I was getting so bored of nothing but horses and corsets. I only hope my readers will be willing to go along for the ride." She goes on a bit more about the main storyline, which Sybil thinks sounds rather like _Doctor Who_ meets _Wuthering Heights_ with a generous shot of semi-explicit sex.

"Good heavens. I'll be sure to watch the post for my invitation to see you collect your Man Booker Prize." Mary readjusts her scarf, staring straight ahead with a faint, unkind smile.

Edith's mouth twists. "As if you'd come. Even if I did invite you."

Sybil opens her mouth to say something that will both reproach Mary and soothe Edith, but before she can speak Mary stumbles and collapses, making a sound like the cry of a sparrow that's flown into a window. Sybil's annoyance veers into alarm. "Shit, Mary, are you all right?"

Mary's crumpled in the middle of the pavement, drawing looks from the passersby. "Fine, I think." She takes Sybil's outstretched hands and tries with uncharacteristic clumsiness to rise. "I just caught my heel on—Augh!" She sinks back down, white-faced.

"Let me have a look." Sybil drops to her knees and palpates Mary's ankle, making her wince. "It may be sprained. Can you put any weight on it?"

Mary tries and grunts in pain. "No."

"All right." Sybil glances around at the pre-theatre crowd, which is numerous and only getting thicker. "We'd better get you to A&E."

Mary groans and Edith says, "But what about the play?"

Sybil's head snaps up. "Really, Edith. Does Mary look like she's in any shape to go to the theatre? Though of course you can go on if you like."

Edith drops her eyes, chastened. "I'll just hail us a taxi." She steps over to the kerb and starts scanning the roadway.

Sybil shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking, making you walk in those shoes." Mary has on four-inch heels, which didn't slow her down at all until two minutes ago.

"It's not your fault, darling." Mary takes them off, grimacing as she undoes the strap on her bad ankle.

Edith hurries over with wrinkled brow to help Mary to the waiting cab. Between them she and Sybil manage to move Mary across the pavement, hop-stepping clumsily until she can sink down into the seat. Edith exchanges a few words with the driver about which hospital will be quickest to reach in current traffic conditions and they're off.

"We'll have to ring Tom when we can find a phone," Sybil says. "Who knows how long this will take."

"Use mine." Mary digs in her handbag and pulls out a cherry-red-and-silver Nokia, thumbing the code to wake it up.

Sybil raises her eyebrows. She's not surprised Mary has a mobile phone, as obsessed as she is with always being available for work. As for getting one herself, Sybil doesn't see the attraction in the idea of people being able to ring her wherever she might be, even though more and more of her and Tom's friends seem to have them. She punches in her home number. "I have to press the green button to make it go through?"

"Exactly."

The ringtone flutters into Sybil's ear fruitlessly. "He's not answering. We've got the sound on everything turned down so it doesn't wake Siobhan." A click, and her own voice greets her brightly with the outgoing message she recorded a few months ago: _Hullo, you've reached Sybil, Tom, and Shrimpy!_ _Leave a mes—_She rings off without leaving one.

"Oh, darling, I'm so sorry to have ruined your night." Mary's forehead puckers as she puts her mobile back into her bag.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sybil says absently, rubbing the center of her forehead. "It's not as if you twisted your ankle on purpose." She takes a deep breath: _No good getting upset._ If she allows the annoyance snapping at the edges of her thoughts to take over, it'll only make things more difficult.

"But once we've got me registered at A&E I want you to go home. There's no need for you to be kept out when you don't get to have any fun."

Sybil would like to take Mary up on the offer. Even before things went pear-shaped, her mind had wandered back to the flat more often tonight than she cares to admit. But Siobhan and Tom are not the only ones who need her: things could quickly get ugly with Edith and Mary left to themselves in a hospital waiting room. She imagines the _Mail _headline: _This is Nobility? Earl's Daughters Brawl in London A&E_. "I'm not leaving you."

"But won't the boys be worried when we're not back after the play lets out?" Edith takes off her gloves in the warm dry air of the car, arranging them on her lap.

"We'll try ringing again later. Best not to worry them until we know how bad it is, I guess." Sybil pulls off her own gloves and glances at her wristwatch, smiling slightly when she sees the time. "Besides, it's just about what Tom and I call the witching hour. I imagine they've got their hands full."

-ooo-

As Tom has adapted to the new normal over the past six weeks, he's learnt that parenthood is less a matter of fitting Siobhan into his and Sybil's routines than of rejiggering their rhythms to fit Siobhan's. Mornings are for lying on the floor in a patch of light from the window, kicking footie-pajamaed feet, and huffing excitedly; afternoons and early evenings are for drowsing on Mummy or Daddy's chest while mellow music or the telly plays in the background; late evenings, wearing into the nights, are for inconsolable screaming. So when Siobhan cycles up shortly after seven o'clock, Tom just gives a resigned sigh and tells a startled-looking Matthew and Anthony, "This is what she does. We've just got to ride it out."

Usually he or Sybil will walk the floor with her, or else pop her into the swing and play her a song (it drowns her out some, even if it doesn't stop her crying). But of course he can't manage the guitar with a full arm cast, and between that and his narcotic-induced drowsiness Tom doesn't feel safe carrying her. So he fumbles with the CD binder while Matthew wears a path back and forth across the living room with his daughter.

Anthony comes up behind him. "Is there something you're trying to find?"

"She likes the Pogues." Tom's irritation mounts along with the intensity of Siobhan's cries, and escapes in a noisy breath when he finds the liner notes in their designated sleeve, but no CD. "I guess Sybil didn't put it back last time." He feels a sudden and completely unreasonable stab of rage and wishes she were there: not so she could tell him where she put the bloody thing, but so he could yell at her. It only takes a second for him to realize how ridiculous this is.

"Would it still be in the CD player?" Anthony somehow manages to avoid sounding like this should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, and goes over to check. The disc is indeed in the carousel; a moment later Shane MacGowan and punk rock accordions are adding to the general anarchy. Anthony winces and turns down the volume. "She likes this, does she?" He has to raise his voice, as Siobhan's worked herself into a proper frenzy.

Tom collapses onto the sofa and pinches the bridge of his nose with his left hand. "It sometimes works." He should really get up and help Matthew, but he just wants to sit with his eyes closed for one minute. By the time it's up Siobhan has gone beyond wailing into square-mouthed screaming, not even producing tears anymore.

_Poor little prawn_. _She's so unhappy._ The now-familiar urge plucks at him: when his daughter is distressed, he can't _not _try to make it better. The compulsion is even worse for Sybil. If Siobhan is crying—even when it's Tom's turn to care for the baby, even when he's doing all that can be done and Sybil should really be catching up on her sleep—Sybil can't help but fidget and hover and anxiously offer suggestions: _Have you tried…? _until the baby is content again. It's as though the sound itself scratches her raw.

Tom gets up and half-stumbles to the window. "Well, fuh… bloody hell, it's ten degrees colder over here," he says, immediately feeling sorry when Matthew's face drops. "Best bring her into the kitchen," he continues in a gentler tone. "She seems to like it in there. It's warmer, anyway."

In the kitchen Tom pulls up a chair at the table while Matthew treads the tiles with Siobhan. Anthony gets another bottle out of the refrigerator to heat up, just in case. "Would you like me to take her for a while?" he asks.

"Not unless you want to," Matthew replies. He tightens the circle of his arms about the baby, rubbing her back. She's calmed down some, though she fusses whenever Matthew shows any signs of slowing down.

"Still want one?" Tom smiles and rolls his eyes. He nods his thanks to Anthony, who's gotten him a glass of water and sat down opposite.

Matthew breathes the scent of Siobhan's head. "Mary still doesn't."

Tom suppresses another, more intense roll of his eyes. _Mary, Mary, quite contrary_. "Have you _told _her that you want to have children?"

"We haven't talked about it recently."

"And by recently you mean…"

"Since before she made partner."

Over a year, then. According to Matthew, Mary's meteoric rise within her profession is the stuff of legend. Even he, her husband, seems to hold her career as something not to be hampered by such puny considerations as her family's needs.

Tom almost laughs at the surprisingly chauvinist path his thoughts seem to be taking; but then again, he's not exactly objective where Mary's concerned. He can't get over the feeling that she's never forgiven him for breaking Sybil's heart, never mind that Sybil broke his as well. Never mind that each put the other's back together. But isn't that proof of how fierce and steadfast Mary's love is for those few she allows in? Certainly she wouldn't deny Matthew his heart's desire for the sake of ambition. "Is work the only reason she doesn't want a family?" He asks, feeling as though he's chewing over the question.

Matthew's offering Siobhan milk, but she seems more in the mood for a nap. Her head nestles into his shoulder, then jerks up as her eyes snap open. He sets the bottle on the worktop. "It's a pretty important reason." He shrugs. "To her, anyway. To both of us."

"So your work's important to you as well."

Matthew's shoulders rise and fall again. "_Her_ work's more important to me, if I'm honest. I've always been able to take or leave the job, really."

"You could always quit. Be a house-husband." Tom shoots a glance at Anthony, who seems to be having some difficulty with swallowing his water. "I know it's not the traditional thing."

Anthony coughs and pounds his chest lightly. "It would be rather… _unconventional_."

"But _you _don't work," Matthew points out, "and Edith does."

"That's hardly the same. She writes for the fun of it more than anything, and it's not as if she's supporting me."

Tom raises his eyebrows, already framing a rejoinder, but Matthew only chuckles. "That ship's sailed for me and Mary. She's the one who pays eighty percent of our bills already."

Anthony looks even more shocked, either at Matthew's revelation or the frank reference to finances, and hurriedly shifts the subject. "The baby does seem fond of you." Siobhan has fallen asleep, one of those abrupt slack-jawed infantine slumbers, her face burrowed into Matthew's jumper. Tom can see a spot of drool darkening his shoulder already; Matthew appears not to notice.

Tom's urge to needle Anthony has not diminished. "So what about you, Strallan?" He asks. "Have you and Edith any plans for a brood?"

Anthony's face creases in that way it does when a question flusters him, but he feels it would be impolite not to answer. Tom, not being one to shy away from an uncomfortable topic, is rather familiar with the expression on him. "We, er, haven't quite decided."

"You and Maud never had any children?" Matthew's voice is quiet, more respectful than Tom's was.

"No. We tried, but…" Anthony's eyes slide into a corner of the room.

Tom suddenly feels like a wanker for bringing it up. "Sorry." He takes a swallow of his water.

"Oh, it's not as if it was a tragedy." Anthony's face breaks into a fond smile. "We were quite happy, once we'd accepted the way things were." He becomes serious again. "As for Edith and me, I'm afraid I'm the one who's dithering. We've settled into such a nice life, and—" he glances up at Siobhan, who begins the whimper the second Matthew comes to a halt. Matthew sighs and starts walking again. "It's not that I don't like the _idea _of having children…"

"The reality's a bit intense, I'll give you that." Tom chuckles. "It's amazing how something so small can take up so much time and effort."

"I am pretty set in my ways." Anthony smiles ruefully.

"But she won't always need all this attention." Matthew pivots at the doorway and comes back toward the table again. "Before you know it she'll be off to university."

Tom blinks and swallows hard. _Now, why did you have to go and say a thing like that? _"Not quite yet, though." His voice catches and Anthony looks down at the floor, but Matthew grins at seeing that his blow has landed. He likes to have his bit of fun with Tom too.

Tom's revenge is not long in coming. Siobhan sighs in her sleep and smacks her lips, snuggling deeper into Matthew's shoulder—Tom can almost hear the blood dripping from his brother-in-law's melting heart—before an ominous _putt-putt-putt_ sound issues from her lower half. Matthew's blissful smile turns upside down. "Did she just do what I think she did?" He sniffs with trepidation. "Yeah. She did."

Tom guffaws. "Well, there you go. You wanted the full fatherhood experience, and you're getting it."

"You are going to help me, aren't you?"

Tom waves his cast and gives Matthew a glittering smile. "This is definitely a job that calls for two hands."

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Anthony bustles to his feet and holds out his arms for the baby, making both Tom's and Matthew's eyebrows jump. "Just tell me where everything is."


	4. Chapter 4

_Thanks to those still reading! We're about at the midpoint._

* * *

Edith throws down her magazine and rolls scornful eyes around the waiting room. "This is ridiculous! Every magazine here is at least three years old."

Sybil shifts in her seat, trying to work a kink out of her shoulder. "Think of it as a history lesson." In the hour they've been here she's only grown more annoyed, and it doesn't help to have Edith turning up her nose at their surroundings and Mary sighing every time another patient gets called in ahead of them.

"We should have gone to the private clinic," Mary says for the second time, after a boy with what appears to be acute appendicitis is whisked into the back straightaway. _As he bloody well should be_, Sybil thinks.

"Maybe." She manages to keep her voice even. "But we're here now, aren't we?"

"We are... and probably will be for the rest of our lives." Mary rolls her eyes. She's reclined down the row of chairs with her bad foot propped in Sybil's lap.

Sybil presses her lips together. _The world doesn't revolve around you!_ She'd like to snap. It boggles her mind, how Mary can be so generous with those she cares for, yet so callous toward strangers.

Mary sighs. "I don't mean to be such a baby. Only I hate feeling so helpless."

Sybil pats Mary's leg comfortingly. "I know. I promise it'll be over before you're old and grey."

Edith picks up another antique magazine and starts flipping through it. "I wish you'd _try _to walk on it again, Mary. You could go to the doctor on Monday and we wouldn't have to sit here half the night. It's not as if it's broken."

"It may be a fracture," Sybil says. "We don't want to make it worse. And even if it _is _just a sprain—"

"I wouldn't bother. We both know Edith will never be made to feel sorry for me." Mary cocks her head and smirks as though she expects Sybil to join in on the joke. The corners of Sybil's mouth stay resolutely downturned: she likes to think she's a patient person, but she's almost lost hers.

"I think if your ankle were broken you'd be making a good deal more noise. I do know something about broken bones, no thanks to you." Edith's mouth twists and almost unconsciously she encircles her left wrist with her right hand.

"I wondered when you'd bring that up." Mary's eyes roll toward the ceiling again. "Twenty years on and I still haven't lived it down." She purses her lips to suppress an echo of the guilt that still rises when she thinks of that one small lapse in responsibility and its rather serious consequences. _See you at the stables, slowcoach! _As if Edith hadn't paid her back times ten. _We were children, for goodness' sake._ And it's not as if she'd meant for Edith to fall off the horse.

"As I was saying," Sybil says, her voice even and precise in the way it only gets when she's extremely irritated, "Even if it is only a sprain, it still needs immediate treatment. So let's make the best of the situation."

"Like Edith's ever made the best of any situation," scoffs Mary.

Well, if you hadn't been so bloody clumsy—"

"Stop it! Just stop it, both of you." Sybil pinches her forehead. "You're giving me a headache."

The elder Crawley women fall silent instantly, a penitential stillness coming over both their faces. After a moment Edith asks, "Is it very tiring, having a new baby?"

"Sometimes. It's more tiring watching the two of you act like great babies."

Mary and Edith exchange glances; Sybil's hardly ever this snappish. Mary opens her mouth. "Darling—"

"Sometimes I wish I could just lock the two of you in a room and not open the door until you've made it up or one or both of you is dead."

"Goodness." Edith chuckles.

"I don't think it's funny!" Sybil opens her eyes and glares at each sister in turn. "I know you've never gotten on, but for fuck's sake, you're family." A woman sitting a row over with a listless toddler held in her lap looks daggers at Sybil, but she ignores it. "The least you could do is act like it every once in a while instead of constantly trying to peck each other's eyes out."

Another awkward silence falls. Sybil takes an audible breath, trying to calm herself. Mary and Edith have always been this way, even before that rumor-spreading business when they were teenagers. But their bickering is especially upsetting tonight: exhaustion brings every emotion that much closer to the surface.

"We only wanted to give you a nice night out," Edith says quietly.

"And a play would've been enough of a distraction." Mary throws a glance around the emphatically distraction-free waiting room.

Sybil sighs. "I know. And I do appreciate it."

Edith draws herself up and starts to put on her scarf and gloves. "I should go. Someone needs to let the men know what's going on." Sybil's tried calling home again and Mary rang Matthew's mobile, but there was no answer from either one.

"No, stay." Mary flaps a hand toward Edith, so surprising her that her mouth actually sags open a little. "I'd like it if you did." Mary does not sound as if she'd _like _it, exactly, but her tone is more conciliatory than any Edith's heard out of her since sixth form.

Edith swivels her head toward Sybil. "It's still your night. What do you want me to do?"

Sybil shrugs. "I'd like it if you stayed too." She gives Edith a hard look. "That is, if you think you can behave yourself."

"Well, it takes two to tango." Edith purses her lips and casts an appraising eye at Mary.

Mary raises a delicate brow at the challenge. "I can certainly keep a rein on my mouth if you can."

"All right, then. I'm going to try and ring Tom again." Sybil lifts Mary's leg off her lap so she can get up and gingerly lowers it back to the chair.

"Maybe you should leave a message this time," Edith says. "They must check them at some point."

"Will do." Sybil moves off to the public telephone in the corner and her sisters sit in tense silence, both wishing they were somewhere else.

-ooo-

Anthony chuckles down at the freshly changed baby, who's scissoring her plump little legs and flirting with him from the table. "Was that a smile? I think she just smiled at me." He watches her eyes drift to the mobile hanging above her and gives it a spin with his hand.

Tom leans against the doorframe. "They aren't quite smiling yet at this age, I don't think. At least not on purpose."

"But she must be happy to be rid of that load." Over Anthony's shoulder, Matthew makes a warding gesture. "It can't be very nice, wearing a dirty nappy."

Tom gives a snort. "It's one of the few things that _doesn't _seem to make her cry." As if on cue, Siobhan's face crumples and she begins fussing. "I'll bet she's hungry. It's been a couple of hours since she ate last." He turns a bit too quickly to go back down the hall and stumbles.

"Well, at least we don't need to worry that you're feeling any pain," Matthew quips.

"Shut it." Actually, the ache is starting to assert itself again, deep within where the bones snapped apart. No good dwelling on it, though; he can't take another dose for a few hours yet.

Anthony wraps Siobhan in her blanket and gathers her up, following Tom and Matthew back to the kitchen. He picks up the bottle left on the worktop and sits down with the baby; this time she opens her mouth and suckles eagerly. "There. She _was _hungry." Anthony smiles with a satisfied air, as though he was the one who called it.

"So I know Sybil's still on leave from the hospital, but how does it work for you?" Matthew asks Tom. "Being up with the baby all night and then having to go to the office in the morning?"

"Well, Siobhan does sleep sometimes. And my hours aren't exactly regular." Tom's as likely to be out reporting as in the newsroom during the day, and even before Siobhan was born he occasionally went in late after an especially long night, or stayed home to write where it was quiet. Being able to get work done in the flat seems like a distant memory now.

"But you've never thought about having someone in to help?"

"What, like a nurse?" Tom half-smiles. "Sybil didn't want it. And besides, I don't know where we'd put one." They still live in their one-bedroom flat, Siobhan's cot wedged between their bed and the wall.

"I daresay Edith would have a nanny, if we had children." Anthony looks meditatively down at Siobhan, contentedly eating in his arms. "It's just the way we're used to doing things, I suppose."

According to Sybil, Edith and Anthony have hired professionals for everything from decorating and cleaning their house to walking their matched set of English bulldogs three times a day. To Tom it seems an odd way to live, being so dependent on others. But then, until recently it was never an option for him to pay people to see to the mundanities of life.

Speaking of which: "Why don't I take her off your hands for a bit?" Tom scoots his chair closer to Anthony's and holds out his good arm toward his daughter. "I can manage pretty well as long as I'm sitting down."

"But she seems happy enough," Anthony protests. "You can take her in a little while."

Tom nods, but he can feel the scowl threatening. Since he went back to work a few weeks ago it seems he's been scrambling to get as much time as he wants with his daughter. He even relishes the nighttime wake-ups, though they steal the sleep that's in almost as short supply as time. And now, with his arm broken, he can barely even hold her.

He remembers the sense of despondency he felt while he and Sybil were separated for all those months, as fresh as if it were five days ago instead of five years. The dross of last night's whisky on the back of his tongue, the bleak inevitability of his downward spiral and his utter indifference to it. It's a powerful, almost physical memory, and he gets a whiff of it every time he's apart from Sybil for any length of time. His need to have Siobhan's small warm weight in his arms is different, but it's just as primal. He gets to feeling wrong after a few hours without her.

"Let the man feed his daughter, for God's sake," Matthew says. He leans over to take Siobhan off Anthony's lap, cupping his hand behind her head before Tom can remind him. "I'll bet Sybil keeps her all to herself when she's home."

"She does. Selfish, that's Sybil all over." Tom manages to get Siobhan situated against his chest without taking the bottle from her lips, holding it in his left hand while he braces the baby with his cast, facing her outward.

Anthony glances at the stovetop clock. "I wonder how they're getting on."

Matthew chuckles. "Sybil's probably wishing she'd stayed at home with the crying baby, if it's anything like the last time Mary and Edith got together."

-ooo-

It's the crying baby that does it.

They're finally in an examination bay, having been shown there twenty minutes ago by a nurse whose bored expression made Sybil's blood boil, and who vanished without a word about when they might expect to be seen by the doctor, let alone any effort at making the patient comfortable. Edith perches on the molded plastic chair at the bedside; Sybil hovers, watching for anyone in a white coat or scrubs who doesn't look completely swamped. Finally she sinks down on the bed at Mary's side, muttering, "Saturday night in A&E. We're at the bottom of the bleeding priority list." She plumps the pillow under Mary's ankle again. "Are you in pain?"

"I'm fine, darling, I was just in a bit of a pet before. I think I can give place to the traffic crash victims."

In the next bay, separated from them by a curtain, are a young mother and her flu-stricken infant. Sybil's breasts are already full and aching; it's the last straw when the baby begins to fuss and then to wail, coughing heartbreakingly between its cries. "Oh, _fucking _hell," Sybil mutters as a tingling sensation heralds letdown, with nowhere for the milk to go except through one of her few flattering bras that still fits, soaking into the front of her favorite blouse._ Just what I need. _

Mary's sharp eyes pick out the problem even before Sybil can wrap her coat around herself. "Sybil." She sits up and lays a hand on her sister's knee. "I want you to go home."

"Really, Mary, I'm fine—"

"You've gotten me here." Mary's voice is the same one that urged Sybil out the door of her flat earlier. "Edith can be my walking stick if I need one. Right, Edith?"

Edith frowns, clearly oblivious to Sybil's problem. "But the doctor's about to come, isn't he?"

"Heaven only knows." Mary rolls her eyes. "But I think we've put Sybil through enough tonight."

"_We?_" Edith gives a short laugh and draws herself up stiffly. "I hope you're not including me in that statement."

"Oh, for God's sake. Sybil?" Mary flaps a hand at Sybil's coat.

Sybil sighs and pulls it open on one side, and Edith's eyes widen. "Oh! Sorry!" Her cheeks go pink. "Well, of course you should go home. God."

"I don't feel right leaving you here," Sybil says, even as she fastens her coat. "I'm not sure I trust this place to provide proper care without someone to light a fire under their arses. I've not been impressed so far."

Mary tosses her head. "This is me we're talking about. Have you ever known me to settle?"

Sybil concedes the point with a rueful grin. "I suppose you're right." She stands and gives each of her sisters a sharp look. "Be nice, now. I mean it."

Mary chuckles. "You act as though we're going to jump at each other's throats the moment you're out of sight."

"Not that you could do any jumping," Edith says, and Mary actually smiles. "Go, Sybil. we'll be fine." Edith takes over Sybil's spot on the bed, and the two elder sisters watch until the younger one disappears around the corner.

"Well," Mary says with finality: a dismissal, not an invitation.

Edith rockets to her feet and plops down in the chair again, looking down at her hands. "I'm sure we won't have too long to wait."

"One can only hope." Mary settles back onto the thin bleach-smelling pillow and closes her eyes.

-ooo-

They've resumed their earlier configuration: Matthew and Anthony on the sofa and Tom in the rocking chair with his daughter, who until twenty minutes ago was restless and fussy. Now, with the lights low and the television burbling almost inaudibly while Massive Attack plays at slightly higher volume, Siobhan's drowsy head nods and her eyelids droop.

They flutter open when Anthony stage-whispers: "Is she still awake?"

Matthew makes a cutting-off motion. "She will be as long as we keep watching her go to sleep."

Tom's half drifted off himself, his left arm curled around the baby in unconscious protectiveness. The slight motion of his legs rocking the chair is mostly automatic. At length the sharpening ache in his bad arm prods him to wakefulness, and he looks down at Siobhan. She's asleep.

And now she should be put down, but how to manage it one-armed without waking her? _Poor planning, Da._ "Er…" Anthony's and Matthew's heads whip around at the sound of his voice. "Could one of you…"

Both jump to their feet, but Matthew's the one who ends up taking her. Amazingly, Siobhan remains asleep through the transfer and being laid down. The three men cluster at the foot of the cot, observing her gravely in the light spilling from the doorway. She sighs and smacks her lips, eyes tightly closed.

"So peaceful," Anthony murmurs.

"I suppose that's where they get _sleeps like a baby_." Matthew sounds amused, and rather wistful.

"She won't be sleeping for long if we keep standing over her bed jabbering." Tom chuckles and turns toward the door. "We'd best get out of here."


	5. Chapter 5

"Was that blinking before?" Anthony gestures at the answering machine as they walk past it into the living room. The _New Message_ indicator pulses _1, 1, 1._

Tom stares at it uncomprehendingly. "No, I don't think so." A glance at the clock: nearly eleven. _They should've been back by now. _He tries to squelch the rogue burst of adrenaline. _They went for a drink. That's all. _

He doesn't know why the blinking red number makes him so nervous; it wouldn't have a year ago, he knows that much. Matthew and Anthony certainly don't look anywhere near as worried as he feels. Yet he misses the _Play _button on the first try, and can't hold back a sigh of relief when he turns up the volume and Sybil's voice floods out, sounding harried but unharmed.

Her message is brief and vexingly short on details. Mary fell and twisted her ankle on the way to the theatre; they've taken her to A&E but they aren't sure when they'll be in. Tom smiles a little at the ill-concealed irritation in her voice.

Matthew's shoulders stiffen. He presses the button to replay the message and a deep wrinkle appears between his brows. "I hope it isn't serious."

"I'm sure she'll be fine," Tom says.

"Shame, though. It doesn't sound as though they've gotten to enjoy their night out very much." Anthony shakes his head.

Matthew digs in his trouser pocket for his mobile. A shadow crosses his face as he listens to Mary's phone ring; finally he ends the call. "Why wouldn't she answer? It's not as though they're doing anything."

"You know how those buildings are. Walls a meter thick, electronics everywhere... probably she's got no reception." Tom puts his good hand on Matthew's shoulder. "She has Sybil and Edith with her. She's getting medical attention. Stop fretting."

The sound of a key in the lock makes them jump; their heads whip towards the door as it swings open to admit Sybil, and only Sybil.

The moment Matthew sees that she's alone he lurches toward her. "What's going on? Where's Mary? Is she all right?"

Sybil tries to answer but she and Matthew are both talking at once. Finally she grasps Matthew's elbows and looks directly into his wide blue eyes, speaking slowly and calmly: her crisis-management voice. "Mary's fine. She and Edith are still in A&E waiting to be seen."

"You left them alone together? Mary and Edith?" _Now _Anthony's concerned. His face rolls through alarm, utter confusion, and amusement, coming to a stop at the intersection of the three.

"I made them promise to be nice." Sybil plops her handbag on the table. "And we knew you'd be worried… you hadn't been answering the phone—"

"We were a little busy," Matthew says.

An odd expression flits across Sybil's face, a combination of sympathy and anxiety and something else: envy? "Siobhan went down? How was she?" Her eyes go down the hall; she takes a step toward the bedroom.

Tom puts his hand on her arm to stop her. "She was fine, love. She's asleep." He feels ridiculously relieved that she's home again.

Matthew is not to be deterred. "You're sure Mary will be all right?"

Sybil smiles tightly. "Well, I think Mary's ankle is only sprained. As to the rest of it… I suppose only time will tell."

-ooo-

A technician comes with a wheelchair to take Mary to radiology, instructing Edith to wait, and a quarter of an hour later Mary is deposited back in the exam bay to await the results of her X ray. The minutes spin out just as awkwardly as they've done since Sybil left.

Eventually the tension gets to Edith. "Do you know, I'm rather glad we didn't have to sit through that play. A friend of mine recommended it, but it did sound ghastly."

Mary raises an eyebrow. "I'd have watched _Phantom of the Opera_ performed by tramps if it meant I didn't have to be stuck in A&E all evening." _With you_, she doesn't say, but Edith as much as hears the words in Mary's mind.

"Oh—" Edith puts a hand to her mouth. "I didn't mean that I'm glad you've hurt yourself." She sighs when Mary's other eyebrow joins the first. "Mary, I'm not. Of course I'm not. Good God."

"I'm sure it's only a sprain," Mary mutters. A dispiriting vision of herself hobbling around the courtroom on crutches spins through her head. Such a show of weakness in Manchester's most feared litigation solicitor would be catnip to her opponents.

"I really hope so." Edith feels a stab of genuine compassion at how downcast she looks. "I didn't mean to pick at you earlier, about the time I broke my wrist."

"Well, it was my fault, wasn't it?" Mary gives a sardonic half-smile.

"I'd have been thrown even if you hadn't ridden on ahead. There wasn't anything you could have done." Edith's nods her head slowly, with a bleak chuckle. "I do remember thinking it was worth it to have broken a bone, if only you'd always be as nice to me as you were after it happened."

Mary is silent for a while. When she does speak the words come out with difficulty, as if she's chiseling each one from granite. "I guess I wasn't a very good older sister to you."

Edith does not contradict her.

After another long moment she manages, "It's a regret of mine. Just so you know."

"I'm glad to hear it's not a point of pride." Edith smirks a little, then grows serious again. She inhales. "Mary?"

"Yes?"

"I'm really sorry. I've meant to tell you that for years."

Mary blinks several times, the only sign she'll give of her surprise. But she won't let Edith off the hook so easily. "Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry I spread it about school that you shagged all the footballers." Edith's head is down and her voice comes out quiet, but her words are crystal clear.

Mary exhales a long breath; it's not quite a decade and a half's resentment that's leaving her, but she does feel lighter when it's out. "Thank you."

Edith's head jerks up and her face scrunches. "For what?"

"For finally admitting that it was you. Half the reason I got so angry was that you insisted on denying it."

"Oh." A long moment goes by in silence.

"And I actually did shag one of them."

"Really? I knew it." Edith's face wrinkles up again, this time in amusement. "It was that exchange student, wasn't it? From Turkey, the one all the girls were in love with."

"It was. Not that it was any of your business, or your right to tell anybody."

"No, of course not. Though it figures you'd be the one to bag him," Edith says with a snort.

"He bagged me, more like. It wasn't… well, let's just say things went a bit faster than I was expecting them to."

Edith's face goes white. "He didn't… did he…?"

"He didn't rape me, if that's what you're spluttering about," Mary says crisply. "But there was a certain amount of pressure involved."

"And then to have everyone talking about you afterwards…" Edith shakes her head and leans forward to lay a hand on Mary's arm. "I really am so very sorry."

Mary looks down at Edith's hand like it's a moth that's landed on her, but she doesn't shake it off. "So why did you? That's what I never understood."

"I don't expect you to." Edith shrugs; her hand flutters away from Mary's arm into the air. "You've always been the one everyone wanted to be." Mary smells a sob story coming, but then Edith surprises her by saying, "That's hardly an excuse, though. I took the first chance I had to take you down a peg. Sybil never would have done."

Mary gives a rueful smile. "Sybil's better than both of us."

"I can't believe that out of the three of us, she's the one who's gone and settled down. Baby and everything."

Mary gives a snort. "I wouldn't consign her to the suburbs just yet."

"No, of course not." Edith chuckles. "Could you imagine Tom being one of those men who goes on and on about his roses?"

"Like Anthony, you mean?"

Mary's words might bite if they'd been delivered in a sharper tone, but Edith takes them as they're meant and laughs. "There's a lot to be said for a man who's predictable, you know."

"I do know. I married one."

"They are rather lovely, aren't they? Our men. The three of us have all been quite lucky, if you ask me."

A softening, not quite a smile, touches Mary's face. "I think you're right."

They settle into a silence. It's unlike past silences they've shared, those tense temporary ceasefires that always ended in skirmishes that were as fierce as ever. This silence is very nearly companionable. After several minutes Edith smiles again. "I wonder how they've been getting on with the baby."

-ooo-

Sybil leaves Tom and Anthony to soothe Matthew's nerves and tiptoes into the bedroom to change into a clean shirt. Siobhan is still deeply asleep, the light from the cracked-open door barely illuminating her as a small blanket-wrapped hump. She looks lost in the cot, surrounded by seeming acres of crisp white cotton. No matter how many dust bunnies may have taken up residence underneath the sofa, Siobhan's linens are always kept spotless.

When Sybil pulls open the dresser drawer—it creaks a bit—Siobhan lets out a massive sigh and starts rustling around. Sybil freezes, an instinct borne of the scrabbling exhaustion of the last six weeks: _Oh God don't wake the baby._ Immediately she feels a bit silly. Siobhan's going to wake up for a feed at some point, and Sybil would rather nurse than pump, come to it. She leans over the rail of the cot and gathers her daughter into her arms, settling onto the bed with her. Soon Siobhan's nascent whimpering gives way to the soothing rhythm of suck and swallow, the soft weight against Sybil's abdomen, the smell of clean baby. She leans her head back against the upholstered headboard and closes her eyes, glad to be home.

She's not sure how long it is before she hears the muffled staccato of a knock at the front door; She's been drifting in half-sleep, briefly surfacing to switch Siobhan to the other breast. A burst of voices echoes down the hall and through the cracked-open door, Mary's nonchalant drawl and Edith's more excitable cadence mixed with the lower tones of the men. The thought flits through Sybil's mind that Edith and Mary sound much happier than they've a right to after the night they've had. She should go and see what the diagnosis was for Mary's ankle, make sure she's all right. But Siobhan starts to fuss when she moves and her limbs are so heavy and it's difficult to think about leaving the dark and quiet of the bedroom, so she closes her eyes again. _I'm sure I'll hear all about it tomorrow._

* * *

_AN: A few more chapters to go - we've got to get everyone home safe and tucked into bed, after all. _


	6. Chapter 6

_Thank you as always for the reviews! Here's a little glimpse of Edith and Anthony alone together. This is the first of three chapters (each one focusing on one of our lovely couples) that will wind things up. _

* * *

Anthony drives them home as usual. It's not that Edith's not a _good _driver, as he explained to her years ago after their third date; only that _he's_ not a very good _rider_. Too much of a nervous Nellie, bit of a control freak. Rather fond of keeping arms and legs intact and trousers unsoiled.

Of course, he didn't say that last part. He'd wanted a fourth date, after all.

They make a brief detour to drop Matthew and Mary at their hotel. Anthony was ready to park in a disabled space and go up with them—Mary is, after all, temporarily disabled—but she waves him off, saying "For God's sake, it's only a sprain. From all the fuss everyone's making you'd think I'd had it amputated at the knee." But her eyes are warm and her lips curve upward. They harden to a determined slash as she maneuvers toward the hotel entrance on her crutches, Matthew following like a blond hen in pea coat and muffler. In Matthew Anthony sees the outlines of his younger self, the man who, twenty-odd years ago, saw nothing to be ashamed of in carrying Maud's handbag for her every so often. He's never felt close enough to Matthew to tell him this, but he does approve of a man who's not afraid to show affection (in a decorous way, naturally) and to take care of his partner.

Anthony's rather amazed that Edith offered a lift at all. Ordinarily he'd have to be the one to do it, else her injured sister and her brother-in-law would be left to navigate the vagaries of the late-night taxicab market as best they can with one of them on crutches. But the desultory talk in the car on the way to the hotel was, in the main, friendly. The miasma of tension that fills the air whenever Edith is with Mary (or talks about her, or seems to be thinking about her) was curiously, and happily, absent. And by God, if they don't nearly embrace upon parting. Well, they look each other in the eye and smile and say with apparent sincerity that they simply must get together again soon, which for them is almost as good as falling into one another's arms crying happy tears.

Anthony sets off toward Belgravia and home. A small smile warms his face as he drives and listens to Edith "prattle on," as she so disparagingly refers to it. He likes her so-called prattle. He's often thought that she would be taken a good deal more seriously by others if she could only believe the truth, that she has plenty of value to offer. He's tried to tell her that on multiple occasions, only to be pooh-poohed. She cranks out those romantic novels by the ream even as she sighs about being consigned to the genre author's ghetto.

Ah, well. Lead a horse to water and all that.

Just now the topic on Edith's lips is not her professional life, however, but her personal one. Her relationship with her sisters, to be specific. "I do wish we could be closer," she sighs. "Sybil and I live in the same city, and the last time I saw her was when she was seven months pregnant."

Anthony does not ask what brought this on; whenever Edith gets a bee in her bonnet, his general policy is to refrain from more than sympathetic _hm_s and prompting _ahh_s until she's wound down enough to leave a space for him to reply. Then he'll ask a few leading questions.

He asks one now. "Sybil and Mary have always been close, have they?"

Edith nods. "It used to make me positively green when we were growing up." Anthony doesn't need to ask why. He's learned from multiple sources about Mary's utter rejection of Edith during their childhood and adolescence, and what he hasn't been told he's observant enough to infer. This is the first time she's admitted to being jealous of her sisters' bond, though.

She _has _admitted to him that Mary's current enmity against her is deserved, and why. After the first agonizing Christmas they all spent at her parents' house she could hardly do otherwise. From the mountaintop of relative maturity, Anthony wondered aloud whether it weren't all a bit of juvenile silliness blown out of proportion: so rumors had been put about, so a few people had said some nasty things that weren't true. Edith just gave him a sidewise look and told him he'd obviously never been a teenage girl. But since then he's become better acquainted with the nuances and peculiarities of the relations between Edith and Mary, and realized that Edith's petty crime is not what's kept them from being able to get on. They've always been each other's main antagonists, simply by virtue of personality, and it was just their bad luck to be born into the same family.

It hasn't kept Edith from hankering for Mary's approval, though. It's almost tragically obvious, and Anthony thinks that's half the reason Mary treats her so unkindly. So when she tells him about their breakthrough at the hospital, he is only cautiously optimistic.

"Sounds as though you cleared the air," he says noncommittally.

"I think so. It felt…" Edith gives a shake of her head and a little laugh. "I'm not so naive as to think we'll be best friends now, but it really did feel as though we'd dropped some baggage."

They arrive home, to the delight of the dogs. "Hello, lovelies!" Edith sings out, scratching their quivering heads as their nubs of tails wiggle rapturously from side to side. "Have you been good girls? Have you been on the sofa? You have, haven't you? Who wants a biscuit?" The fat little bodies convulse with excitement and the dogs dash into the kitchen, toenails clicking and scratching on the polished floor. They really are dreadfully spoilt, but Anthony enjoys watching Edith indulge them almost as much as she enjoys doing it. He wonders whether they'd do the same with a child: produce a ghastly little hybrid of Veruca Salt and Augustus Gloop.

Edith shakes the biscuit tin to make it clatter, which whips the dogs into a frenzy. "Does Rosie want a biscuit? Does Gildie?" Officially they're named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but nobody ever calls them that. She tosses the biscuits for them to gulp out of the air, after which they lower their hindquarters to the floor and watch her with expectant eyes. "No more, my dears," Edith says. "The vet says you're too fat as it is."

Tonight they get ready for bed straightaway. Anthony is exhausted: between the baby and the excitement of Mary's injury, it's been an unusually taxing evening. He can only imagine how Edith, who routinely gets up at first light to write, must feel. They settle in, her head pillowed on his shoulder. After a minute she says, "I haven't even asked how your night went. How self-absorbed of me."

He chuckles. "It was fine."

"The baby wasn't too difficult?" Her voice contains a teasing note and her hand steals over to give his side a little tickle.

"Between the three of us, we managed well enough. She's quite fascinating to watch, actually. I daresay she's got more personality than some fully grown people I know." That gets a giggle out of Edith. "I don't remember my sister's children being so interactive until they were older."

Edith gives a light laugh. "Maybe you just weren't paying attention."

"You could be right." A few minutes go by, during which Edith's breathing and her slight movements tell him that she's as wide awake as he is. "Edith?"

"Mm?"

"I know we haven't talked much about it. But a baby… is that something you want?"

She's silent for a moment. "I always thought I would. But then I got involved in writing, and we got together, and… I've always thought you weren't very interested. I suppose the desire to have one has never really been strong enough for me to press the issue."

This describes Anthony's feeling just about perfectly. He wonders how many other unspoken agreements between them are based on assumptions about what the other wants. "But you wouldn't mind?"

"No, I wouldn't mind." He can hear the smile in her voice. "A child out of wedlock, though? Granny would have a heart attack." She's teasing again, though Anthony knows she's not wrong.

"We could get married."

"I suppose we could." She tickles his ribs again, making him jump. "Was that a proposal, sir? As an expert on love stories, I must say that it's not the most romantic one you could have made me."

Anthony laughs. "I don't agree, my dear. We are in bed, after all." He's usually not given to innuendo, but her tickle has become a caress, and it's making him feel less and less tired every moment.

"Well, if things are really about to get romantic, then we're going to have to do something about these pajamas."

He captures her hand before it can start working at the row of buttons down his chest and brings it to his lips, kissing each knuckle lightly. "Do you really want to, then?"

She laughs. "Get married? Or have a baby?"

"Well, first things first." He leans over so he can press his lips to her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth.

"It _is_ about time you made an honest woman of me." She's joking, of course: neither of them has ever been particularly keen to marry, though they're as committed as a couple can be. But somehow it feels different with a child in the mix.

"And don't worry that you'll have to tell your parents I proposed in bed." His fingers tangle in her hair; he is definitely not tired anymore. "I'll do it in the more traditional way at some point." He smiles. "When you least expect it. There have to be some surprises, don't there?"

"My goodness, I may die of the excitement." She speaks in a way she often does with him: indulgent, intimate, making fun a little. _I wouldn't want you any other way_, that tone says, and if she ever stopped using it on him he should be quite worried about the condition of their relationship. She laughs then and rolls on top of him, leaving him in no doubt as to the present state of the union.

"So," she murmurs, her hair brushing his cheeks as she leans down for a kiss, "I believe we were saying something about romance."


	7. Chapter 7

As soon as the door closes behind them Mary lets out a groan of relief, wilting into the armchair beside the television. Matthew smiles: "Home sweet home."

"Don't I wish." She closes her eyes to shut out the paint-splatter-patterned coverlets and the hideous modern-art reproductions adorning the beige-painted walls. She usually makes the hotel reservations when they come to London, but Matthew did it this time. _I've had us try out a new place_, he said. _We'll save a bit of money_.

She'd laughed and replied _Why do we need to save money? Do you have something to tell me?_ But she knows it's just the middle class coming out in him, like dark paint seeping through a pale topcoat. She doesn't fault him for it; nor will he be booking the hotel next time they make the trip. Lesson learnt.

Matthew tosses her handbag on the unused bed and comes over to press a kiss to her forehead, and she opens her eyes and bestows him a tired smile. He leans back, his bright eyes dimmed a bit with the late hour but full of concern. "How are you?"

"Quite well, thank you."

"Not in pain?"

They gave her painkillers at the hospital, a few levels above paracetamol but not as potent as whatever Tom had for his arm (some of which he half-jokingly offered before they left his and Sybil's flat). "No, I'm fine."

"Tired?"

She sighs. "Exhausted." The prospect of getting up and managing even the rudiments of bedtime hygiene, let alone a shower, is more daunting than staying here in this chair all night.

Matthew holds out his hands. "Let's get you to bed, darling. I'll help you." He begins to pull her up, talking over her feeble protests: "You'll feel better once you can lie down. Up we go, now. Just in here." Together they hobble into the bathroom, where she leans against the vanity.

She laughs when he puts the paste on her toothbrush. "Are you going to clean my teeth for me as well?"

"Do you need me to?" He hands her the loaded brush with a raised eyebrow when she shakes her head. "Mary, I know you don't like asking for help—even mine—but there's nothing wrong in it."

"I like my independence." The words come out garbled around the toothbrush.

"You're proud," he corrects, raising a hand in response to her rolled eyes. "And there's nothing wrong in that, either. Rather bewitching, I should say." One side of his mouth turns up slightly.

She spits into the sink, her gaze reaching for the light fixtures again when she straightens up. "But sometimes we must let go and allow the people who love us to take care of us," she singsongs. "Blimey, I think I've learnt a valuable lesson today."

He's rummaging in her toiletry bag, bringing out the various bottles and jars she makes use of every evening. He doesn't miss even one and she raises an eyebrow, silently impressed. "You mock me," he says, "but you know it's true." He wets a washcloth and hands it to her.

"As long as you won't tell anyone. I should hate people to think me weak." She's only half in jest.

He responds in kind: not serious, but sincere. "Your sordid secret is safe with me." He catches her eyes flicking to the bathtub. "Do you want to have a bath?"

"Not tonight, I think. It's late and I just want to sleep."

They get undressed, which is easy enough for Mary to manage sitting down, and into bed. Matthew insists on using several pillows to prop up Mary's ankle—"We still need to prevent swelling"—and he turns out the light to the thick, complete darkness that only ever seems to exist in hotel rooms. Mary closes her eyes gratefully, but her mind is still having trouble turning itself off; it's full of the care instructions from the nurse and low-grade worries about how she's going to manage on the trip back to Manchester and at work on Monday.

And then there's her and Edith's conversation. The apology surprised her, she'll admit it, though hardly more than the confession. And of course she's pleased; she'd have to be mad not to be happy that she and her nearest sister can finally begin to let go of the animosity between them.

And that's the problem. If it persists, if nothing changes, then the fault will rest not with Edith but with her. Mary knows that her reasons for hating Edith were always flimsy. The original offense was a misdemeanor, its consequences short-term and relatively mild, at least in retrospect. She still remembers the sinking feeling when she realized it was _her _that people were calling a slut behind their hands, but it was nearly the end of her last term and it wasn't so very difficult to hold her head high for a few weeks. As for Edith's duplicity, deep down Mary knows that her anger over it was manufactured. She's never expected Edith to be on her side; they don't have that sort of relationship, rather the opposite. The simple truth is that they've never liked each other, and Mary was just looking for something to justify it.

She sighs, settling her shoulders deeper into the mattress, trying to get comfortable. Matthew's breathing had started to even out but it catches at her movement. "Y'awrightdahlin?"

"Fine."

"Can't sleep?" He seems to have surfaced completely, and Mary's conscience pricks her a little at having kept him awake.

"It's nothing, darling. Go to sleep." But she feels his fingertips at her elbow, walking down her forearm to take her hand in his. He squeezes gently and leans over to kiss her cheek and she gives up trying to be quiet. But she won't talk about what's really bothering her; she doesn't want to expose such a petty side of herself to him. "How was baby-sitting?"

"Brilliant, actually. I got Siobhan to quiet down when her own dad couldn't." The satisfied note in his voice makes Mary laugh. "She's really quite adorable. Even when she's crying there's something about her that makes you want to gather her up."

"It's called survival of the species," Mary says drily. "If they weren't appealing, we'd abandon them to be eaten by wolves after a week of sleepless nights."

Matthew laughs. "You say that, but if we had one I've a feeling you'd love it as fiercely as any lioness does her cub."

Her face prickles. _We've been through this_, she wants to tell him, but she doesn't want to say it and disappoint him again. It's not that she has a philosophical objection to having children; it's simply impossible with the life they lead. A hundred years ago their progeny could've spent nine-tenths of their time with a nanny and no one would have batted an eye, but that is not the case now. _And a hundred years ago I wouldn't have had a job I love so very much._

Her silence has gone on long enough to be eloquent. "I don't mean to beat a dead horse," he says. "But earlier I was thinking…" his voice rises speculatively.

Mary cuts him off, but keeps her voice light. "Spending time with Siobhan made you broody?" It occurs to her how strange it probably is that her niece doesn't affect her that way. She's a perfectly lovely baby, of course, and Mary very much looks forward to having a relationship with her. When she's older.

"I suppose." He chuckles. "But Tom said something tonight and it occurred to me... obviously we don't need both our incomes."

Her heart sinks. "_Matthew_." How could he even suggest...

"Hear me out. It's not what you're thinking."

"All right." She takes a deep breath through her nose and resolves to _try _and keep her mouth shut.

"What if we had a baby and I stayed home to take care of him? Or her." The words come out in a rush, as though he fears being interrupted—a fear that is not entirely unjustified, given the way some of their past discussions have gone.

He's right: it's not what she was thinking. The possibility of Matthew quitting work has honestly never occurred to her. This is mostly because she's never entertained the thought of doing so herself—so why would he? "Well. You must really want a baby," is what comes out of her mouth, in a sardonic tone that immediately makes her want to kick herself.

He's quiet for a moment and she can almost hear him deliberating before he finally bursts out with it. "I suppose I do at that."

"Matthew—"

"It's not something I've been hiding from you or anything," he hastens to add. "It's been building, these past few months. I guess tonight was the tipping point."

"But to stop working?" It's unthinkable to her.

His shoulder slips against hers as he shrugs. "I'm not like you in that way. I think I'd quite like taking a few years off to finger paint and sing silly songs."

Mary smiles; she has to admit the mental picture is charming. But… "You wouldn't miss talking to grown-ups?" Another vision springs into her head of Matthew at the park, the lone man in a sea of nannies and stay-at-home mums. "You might get lonely."

"I'm sure I'd manage. Besides, it's not as if my co-workers are especially good company." Mary has suffered through enough of his firm's holiday parties to take his point.

"It's an interesting idea," she says, noncommittal. "Let's sleep on it, shall we?"

"Fair enough." He yawns and rolls toward her, draping his arm over her stomach and nuzzling her shoulder, and is asleep in minutes. Mary attempts to follow her own advice, but she still can't stop thinking. Beneath Matthew's arm her hand drifts over her tummy. She wonders what it would feel like for that slight dip between her hipbones to become a rise, growing to accommodate her child—_their _child—would it have blue eyes or brown? Would it have the famed Crawley stubbornness? Her mind embellishes the fuzzy image, gives it his goofy smile and her expressive forehead. Dresses it in a plaid skirt and white blouse and scuffed loafers, sticks plasters on its knees. She imagines viewing the signposts of childhood from the perspective of a parent.

She sighs. The idea has an undeniable attraction, especially with Matthew's offer, which makes things so much simpler on the surface. He thinks he's come up with a way for them to have it all, but she's not convinced. The thought of him altering his life so drastically worries her. What if the change drives them too far apart and they lose the things they have in common? It would be easier if she loved her work less, or Matthew less; she _wants _him to have what he wants, she does. And she's willing to make sacrifices so that he can, but already she feels pulled in two different directions. It will be a hard test to add another. She feels a pang at the thought of being the distant parent, the one who comes home in time to kiss her sleeping children's foreheads and leaves before they're up for breakfast. But she knows that while there may be any number of reasons to say no, that's not one of them.

_Sleep on it._ Determinedly, Mary closes her eyes, regulates her breathing. This is not a decision to be made in one night, or ten. But as she drifts off, deep down she knows that her heart has already chosen.


	8. Chapter 8

_AN: This is where the STEAMM train makes a stop at the S/T station. (See what I did there?) To any M/M or E/A shippers still reading: hope I did your ships a little bit of justice. To everyone: thanks for reading and reviewing! Playlist at the end._

* * *

A yellow glow filters through Sybil's eyelids as Tom opens the door; just as quickly it's gone as he swings the door nearly shut, leaving just a crack for the hall light to shine in. Drifting on the fringes of sleep, she hears him edge into the room. "She woke up, eh?"

Siobhan's still in Sybil's arms, nursing dozily. Sybil hadn't meant to fall asleep; certainly hadn't meant to leave her on the breast this long. "Not quite, but something had to be done. I started leaking in A&E." She chuckles without opening her eyes.

Tom gives a sympathetic laugh. "Poor darling." His fingers knead her forehead gently. "Not much of a night out, then?"

Sybil snorts. "Mary and Edith started in on each other as usual. They got back in one piece, I assume?"

"Yep. Seemed friendlier than usual, as a matter of fact. Edith actually offered Matthew and Mary a lift to their hotel."

Sybil's eyes snap open. "You don't say. Well, I'll definitely have to have that story from Mary before they go home." She detaches Siobhan, who whimpers a bit but then sinks deeper into sleep, and tucks the blanket more securely about her small body. "How'd it go with you?"

"Fine."

She opens one eye. He's backlit in the dim glow from the door, his face a dark blur above her. She closes it again. "Really?"

"'Course. She was a perfect angel."

"Please," Sybil scoffs.

"She was fine, love. She was... herself. D'you really think our daughter's going to be easy every minute of every day?"

"Fair enough." She smiles. "How's your arm?"

"Hurts like a bitch."

"It must, if you're talking like that in front of the baby," she teases. Sybil doesn't share Tom's preoccupation with keeping Siobhan's ears pure. "Go take your painkillers."

Tom sighs. "You know they'll just make me pass out. I don't want to leave you with—"

"Don't be ridiculous." She puts on her nurse voice, jolly but with just enough steel to be authoritative. "Now, I don't want to hear another word about it. Two of those pills, down the hatch."

"Syb, I really don't need—"

"Two of them. _Now_. Off you go."

"All right, you win, Nurse Crawley-Branson." He laughs and leans down to kiss her forehead, and then turns and pads down the hall. Sybil scoots off the bed, lays Siobhan in the cot, and goes to clean her teeth. By the time she returns from the bathroom Tom is a hump under the covers on his side of the bed. She finishes changing and settles in, a scant distance away from him. Normally she'd burrow into his warmth, her hand seeking the smooth solidity of his back, but she doesn't want to bump his cast.

The mattress creaks a little as he rolls over. His left hand pats her hair, her cheek, and she lets him guide her to him until his mouth finds hers in the dark, soft and fumbling a bit, their lips not quite open but not closed either. They settle back into their respective pillows, Tom turned away from her on his left side. Sybil thinks about her recent follow-up visit and how Dr Banerjee gave approval for the resumption of certain activities, not that either Sybil or Tom has been in the mood lately. _We will be again, though, won't we? _She must be done in: her inner voice is more plaintive than usual.

"Love you, darling," she says.

"Love you." A half-dozen minutes go by. His breathing deepens. Sybil is wide awake. She wonders how they'd manage even if they were in the mood, with his arm in a cast. It could be a couple of months before it's off, with a compound fracture. He might need surgery if the bones don't heal cleanly. The car was going quite fast; he got off lucky, really. _They _got off lucky. She should remember that.

She slides closer and eases her arm around his body under the cast. Presses her cheek to his shoulder blade, fits the fronts of her thighs to the backs of his, slots her knees into the bends of his legs.

She squeezes too hard and he snuffles, half waking up, and rolls onto his back. She squirms out from underneath him but his good hand's on her face again, his fingers walking to the back of her neck, drawing her close. She hovers over him gingerly. He pulls her down so her mouth covers his. Delicately his tongue pushes inside and it feels odd after so long, the old rush through her lower belly. They haven't kissed like this since weeks before Siobhan was born, about the time Sybil started feeling like a beached whale. The oddness only lasts a few seconds, though; after that she's home again, like she never left.

The little chuckle he lets out as she pulls away makes it clear that the feeling's there for him just as much as her, but—

"Are you all right?" She asks.

"Are you?" His fingertips dance across her cheek. "We don't have to—"

She shuts him up by pressing her lips on his. The eagerness of his response tells her just how much he's been holding back; he fumbles at her waist, his spread hand slipping up her back under the hem of her t-shirt. He rears his head up so he can kiss her neck, flick his tongue over her earlobe, and Sybil moans deep in her throat.

He puts too much weight on his bad arm and inhales, a pained hiss. "_Feck_."

Sybil rockets to a sitting position. "Sorry! Shit, Tom, I'm sorry." Her voice is louder than she meant it to be. Siobhan stirs in her cot, then stills again. Mentally, Sybil counts the likely number of hours until the baby wakes: not many. _We should sleep._

But Tom has other ideas. "It's fine," he whispers. "It's fine." He moves the cast up out of the way, lain back on the pillow above his head, and with his left hand tugs at Sybil's hip until she takes the hint and shifts to straddle him. They kiss for a little while, slow and deep, Tom's palm rubbing a circle on her lower back.

This is the part where Sybil would normally sit up and whip off the t-shirt and things would escalate from there, but she feels strangely hesitant. It's not that he hasn't seen her body since she gave birth: what with trying to figure out breastfeeding, she feels as though she's spent half the time since Siobhan came home in various stages of undress. Anyway, the room is almost pitch dark. But it's different in this context, and she stiffens when his hand moves around to the side of her still somewhat thickened abdomen.

Almost automatically her hand grasps his and moves it away. As soon as she lets go it's back, gentle but implacable, sliding up towards the nursing bra she wears to bed now. Thinking of it takes her out of the mood completely. _Shit shit shit_. Frustrated tears, always so close to the surface these days, spring up behind her eyes and something thick and acidic rises in the back of her throat. She swallows hard and sits up, suddenly conscious of her weight on Tom; she must be so heavy. Gargantuan. A great ugly lump.

She tries to move off him but his hand tightens on her hip. "Where d'you think you're going?" He sounds playful, a little slurred, definitely aroused: apparently he's oblivious to the turmoil inside her head. He lifts the hem of her shirt. "Help me out here, love, would you?" She doesn't move, her mouth clamped shut on those damn stupid sobs, and the silence spins out. Finally he twigs that something's wrong. "Sybil? You okay?"

She exhales. She's got control of herself now, she can speak without crying. "I feel so weird. Everything's different, it's all shifted around, and I feel…" She grabs his hand and stops it wandering up her shirt again. "I wish you wouldn't do that."

"What, touch you?" He sounds genuinely confused.

_Does he really not get it?_ "I just… I'm not sure I want to right now."

"Okay, fine." Still confused. His hand comes to rest on her thigh, kneading it idly.

"I mean, I want to, but… shit." She sighs and rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. What she wants is to feel like herself again, vital and sexy and comfortable in her skin, and what if the days of feeling like that are over? She hugs her elbows.

"Sybil…" He mumbles over the "b" a little bit and pauses for a long moment to get his thoughts in a row; clearly the oxycodone is doing its work. "D'you know how amazing it is, what you've done? I mean, you grew a person inside you. How amazing is that?" She almost laughs at how faux-profound he sounds: revelations from Morpheus. But he means it.

"I know it is," Sybil says in a low voice. She's heard it before, read it in the pregnancy books: Amazing. Beautiful. A bleeding miracle. She doesn't feel beautiful or miraculous at the moment.

"My point is…" He pauses again, for so long that Sybil wonders if he's drifting off. "My point is that nothing's going to be the same after that experience. You're not the same. I'm not. It's okay, it's fine." He sounds so calm and reasonable, like he's explaining some fundamental concept to a child, and Sybil gets a sudden vision, breathtaking in its completeness: Tom on the sofa with his guitar, an older Siobhan sitting cross-legged on the floor before him like an acolyte. Her sapphire eyes follow his, to his fingers on the fretboard. _These are power chords. Don't overuse them. _Sybil draws a long breath. "And now you're feeding that person with milk that you make with your body. Bloody amazing." He chuckles. "I'm saying 'amazing' a lot."

"Yeah," she whispers. He's not telling her anything she hasn't told herself. She has great respect for her body and its abilities, but now she yearns for what she always took for granted, what she feels like she no longer has.

He blows a breath through his nostrils. "Syb," he says in a slightly blurred version of the voice he used when she was waffling about going back to school. "Syb Syb Syb. Love. C'mere." She makes a small sound of protest but he overrides her. "_Come here_."

She leans over and kisses him again. His lips pull at hers sluggishly. Sleep is coming for him, and soon, whether he likes it or not. But his hand is on her stomach again, and this time she lets it stay. Softly he caresses the slackened skin, the new bulges that she is trying hard not to dwell on just yet. "I love you," he slurs. "You're beautiful and gorgeous and sexy and I fucking love you and I really want to fuck you." She can't help but laugh, especially at the way he drops his voice to a whisper when he says _fuck_. "No, I'm serious, I do. I…"

Silence, except for his heavy breath. He's nodded off.

Sybil shakes her head, smiling, and starts to clamber off him.

He inhales sharply, his hand twitching toward her. "But like I was saying…"

She settles at his side and kisses his forehead. "Get some sleep, darling. We can fuck later."

He snorts a laugh. "Fine. But don't think for a minute that you're off the hook for the entire time this cast's on. As soon as I can stay awake longer than three minutes together, you'd better watch out."

Sybil smiles drily in the dark. "There is the little matter of the baby."

"All right, fine. As soon as Siobhan's asleep and I can stay awake longer than three minutes together."

Her smile widens. "I'll look forward to it."

-ooo-

Appendix K: On the Other Side: Punks Before and After

_I kind of shot my wad with the parenthood-themed songs after _New Developments_, so here's a playlist including some of my favorite musicians who grew up (or maybe just got older...) yet still managed to stay punk rock. Or at least keep making music. :)_

Gang of Four: "I Found That Essence Rare" / "You Don't Have to Be Mad"

New Order: "Dreams Never End" / "Working Overtime"

Sonic Youth: "Brother James" / "Reena"

Fugazi: "Suggestion" / "Ex-Spectator"

Helium: "Baby Vampire Made Me" / Wild Flag: "Romance"

Blonde Redhead: "Luv Machine" / "Spring and by Summer Fall"

Social Distortion: "I Want What I Want" / "I Won't Run No More"

Excuse 17: "I'd Rather Eat Glass" / Sleater-Kinney: "What's Mine is Yours"

The Pixies: "Subbacultcha" / Frank Black and the Catholics: "Nadine"

Wire: "Lowdown" / "Stealth of a Stork"

Bad Brains: "Right Brigade" / "We Belong Together"


End file.
